Yarn Contest

Lost City Knits is giving away a skein of laceweight or cobweb weight yarn to one lucky winner in the color scheme "On a Clear Day."

On a clear day, I would love to sit in the sunshine, amongst some flowers, and enjoy some quiet reading and knitting time. Which really means, someone else will be somewhere else with my children. I love them, but they're not exactly quiet. :)

We've had a really great few days around here though. My parents visited us for the weekend, and we visited the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell. The kids handled the musuem really well, and we even got to ride in a trolley! Yesterday, we went to the beach and played in the sand. I even dug up some clams! (I returned them to the sea, because I'm not really sure what the rules/regulations are for clamming in these parts. Or in any parts, really.)

I've been working on the Lelah top, and hope to be finished with the bottom section tonight. I should post pictures of something, but the kids are calling me outside.

Happy knitting!

Princess Cruise

Hey - if you're in the Boston area and have a little princess, you can win a Princess Luncheon Cruise on the Spirit of Boston for Saturday, April 24th. Check out easypeasyblog.com for details!

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again

Ways to go from this:

To this:

1. Join a KAL for Lelah with the beginning lace knitters group on Ravelry, despite having other plans for April knitting. Decide to join along because I'm basically absent from this group, but I don't want to be. And because my new year's resolution was to knit more for myself, and Lelah is in my queue. And I'm knitting it in Cotton TLC, so it's pretty darn inexpensive.

2. Measure and calculate according to the directions.

3. Cast on 220 stitches, knit the first round and discover you have one extra stitch. Drop the extra stitch, and midway through the second round realize it wasn't an extra stitch, you just skipped a stitch in the pattern.

4. Frog and cast on 220 stitches again. Repeat step 3. Tell yourself you're an idiot, and pay extra careful attention to step 5.

5. Cast on 220 stitches, and VERY carefully, checking often, knit the first round.

6. Congratulate yourself on completing the first round, and keep on knitting.

7. Realize your first ball of yarn is almost gone, and yet you don't have much knitted. Worry a little bit, because you bought 4 balls of yarn, and you thought that was about one whole extra ball.

8. Go back to the pattern and your measurements. Begin to realize you made a big erro in your mathematical reasoning, and realize your shirt is about 10" too big around the hem.

9. Congratulate yourself for being a math genius, and then tell yourself you're pretty stupid for not catching this problem way earlier. Like, before you cast on the second or third time.

10. Frog again, and wind up yarn. Place project in bottom of current project bag until it learns to behave itself.

Impromptu Knitting Class

On Monday, I took Little Girl and Big Boy to karate. Big Boy has been going since September, and Little Girl is just starting. The classes are offered at our local Boys' and Girls' Club, and is INCREDIBLY priced. Big Boy really enjoys it, and it has done wonders for his self-confidence.

None of that has anything to do with this post, except to explain where I was.

Anyway, I was sitting on the gym floor during Little Girl's class, knitting away on a hat, when a little 9 year old girl ran across the floor, and slid to a halt right in front of me. "Wow!" she said, "Knitting! That's cool! How do you do that?" And so, I taught her how to knit. She's got the knit stitch down, but has a rough time with the purls. Next week, I'll try to bring her some yarn and needles she can keep.

The bigger question - how to convince the Boys' and Girls' Club they need a knitting instructor on staff?

Daddy Crafts

This year, my husband took charge of dyeing Easter eggs. Instead of hardboiling a dozen eggs, he poked a small hole in each end of the eggs, broke up the yolk, and then the kids used a straw to blow the egg out. I was a little nervous about the mess, but DH did a phenomenal job of keeping order.

We dyed the eggs with a regular Easter Egg dyeing kit from the grocery store, and after they were dried, we suspended them from the chandelier. Don't they look great?

Traveling

visited 16 states (32%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Someone had this up on Ravelry, so I filled it out for fun. I've been very much dreaming of the beach lately, but I'd like to go without the kids. It's much easier to lose yourself in a book when you're not worrying about small children wandering off. :)

Happy Easter!

Christ the LORD is risen today!

He is risen indeed!

Amen!!!